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The New York Times is finding that some women are purchasing less
expensive wedding gowns but upgrading their accessories, allowing the
bride to get the ‘designer look’ in their own unique way.
For these brides, being able to invest in accessories that can be worn
more than once is a high priority. A simple white dress can become
personally customized with accessories like shoes, a brooch, or high-end
jewelry. Read more here and tell us what you think.

When it comes to Wedding and Engagement jewelry, every couple has their
own opinion. A recent news article from WatchShop.com suggests many
women desire to have platinum jewelry over any other kind of metal,
including gold and white gold.
Platinum jewelry is a favorite due to it being positioned as a premiere
metal. See more of this article at the link below.
http://www.watchshop.com/watchnews/Platinum-jewellery-the-aspiration-for-many-engagements-$800736460.html
What
kind of metal do you prefer?

Taking a cue from the colorful fabrics and detailing seen recently on fashion runways, brides are getting more adventurous and are incorporating colored gemstones such as emerald, ruby and citrine to maximize their ring’s radiance. The brilliant hues from colored stones can speak volumes about a couple’s unique vibe. Possibly one of the most watched rings this past summer was the sapphire and diamond engagement ring Kate Middleton wore when walking down the aisle to with Prince William. Inspired by the new Duchess of Cambridge, Gottlieb & Sons has created an engagement ring - perfect for those lusting for their own royal wedding. See more here and tell us what you think.

Commonly, we hear the exciting details of how marriage proposals unfold.
However, we rarely hear the man’s perspective and how he got permission
to "ask for your hand".
InsideWeddings spotlights how Patrick Deyhle got permission to marry
Vanessa Abreu, who is now his wife.
via Inside Weddings
"Patrick Deyhle confesses that the first time he laid eyes on Vanessa
Abreu, he knew he would one day ask her to be his wife. Before he could
do so, however, he would have to have a very important and intimidating
conversation with the other man in her life: her father. Here's how
Patrick tells it:
'Vanessa's family is very traditional Portuguese, and I was also raised
to believe that you don't propose without getting the father’s
permission first. This combination of factors necessitated my decision
to ask permission.
Vanessa's father is somewhat of a power player in the community, and
although we have a fantastic relationship, I was extremely nervous about
asking his permission. Also, I had a sense that everyone in the family
was starting to wonder when I would propose, so I had to be extra
secretive.
I called her father and told him to meet me at his favorite restaurant
so we could have a chat. He probably knew what I was going to ask,
because at the time it was not common for us to meet for drinks. When I
arrived, he had a table all set up for us, with appetizers, wine, and
everything. I had driven myself into a nervous frenzy by then.
We had barely sat down before I told him that I loved his daughter and
wanted to ask his permission to marry her. Before I finished speaking,
he started nodding and said that he would love having me as an addition
to the family.
It was fairly emotional, and without a doubt I was more nervous for that
event than I was for the actual proposal!'"
http://insideweddings.com/wedding/wedding-proposal/grooms-story-dinner-wth-dad

Traditionally, many couples like to incorporate several people in their wedding parties. These individuals carry the titles, groomsmen, bridesmaids, best man and maid of honor, and are commonly the closest to the married couple-to-be. Untraditionally, the Kettle’s appointed thirty-six of their closest friends and family to complete their wedding party. The unique wedding is a way to represent all the important people in their lives and the core support to their love story. Via WeddingBee (http://www.weddingbee.com/) “That wedding had 34 people. Ours is just shy of that. We are including everyone in our count because they’re all important. Mr. Kettle and I both have a best man and maid of honor. So that’s four. He has eight more groomsmen, bringing our total to 12. I have two more men standing up with me, which brings our total to 14. I also have six more bridesmaids, bringing our total to 20. Add in two junior bridesmaids, and we’re at 22. Then two ring bearers and two flower girls, and we’re at 26. Tack on three hostesses and two ushers, and the number is now 31. Don’t forget our two, yes two, officiants, and we’re at 33. Don’t forget Daddy Kettle, Mr. Kettle, and me. That makes 36! Yup. Thirty-six people. I want to take this time to answer comments I’ve gotten on previous posts. The question was about our hostesses and ushers and what exactly they are. Some people double groomsmen as ushers, helping to seat people as they arrive to the ceremony. That’s not the case with us. Momma Kettle, ever the etiquette stickler (I get it honest, you know, so I know exactly what to rebel against), tells us we should have one usher/hostess for every 50 guests. This is particularly important when our venue is at a house that has thousands of square feet spread over three stories. We’ll need people to help get all those people into the ballroom conservatory for the ceremony, out to the rest of the house for cocktail hour, then back into the ballroom for the reception. They’ll need to know where to sit and when. The mansion provides staff to do this, but having extra people on hand could only help out. Think of a combination between a hostess at a restaurant and a regular usher at a wedding, and that’s what our hostesses and ushers will be. Why not make them honorary bridesmaids and groomsmen? Well, because then they’d get their names on the programs and we’d get no work out of them! Just kidding, but I know they’d want to be involved more than just in name. One of our hostesses is my niece, Hostess Cheery, who’s 19 and too old to be a junior bridesmaid. The other is a high school girl I mentor, Hostess High, who’s friendly with Mr. Kettle ever since they were both in the wedding I met Mr. Kettle at last summer. The third is one of his nieces, FNIL Sniffles, who’s in college and is also too old to be a junior bridesmaid. One of our ushers is my god-brother and the other is Mr. Kettle’s cousin. They’re both in high school. Our wedding has been used as a tool to accommodate all our close family and friends that have been in our lives for a long time. Besides the flowers girls and ring bearers who are both six years old, we’ve known everybody in our wedding party at least 10 years (including the officiants). So, yeah, there are a lot of folks, but they’re our close friends. We’re both just super friendly people who are close to our families. It happens. Soooo many people. Judging by the engagement party, I know our wedding will be exactly what we want: a big party that includes all the people we love and cherish. I will now stop alluding to our engagement party and actually give recaps in my next posts.”

With all of the wild occurrences the east coast is experiencing, Irene Rios and David Knauf are still hopeful about their wedding plans as Hurricane Irene sets in – uninvited! Today.msnbc.msn via NBCConnecticut.com features the soon-to-be-married couple scrambling to decide on what to do about their wedding and 120 guests for Sunday, August 28th. Via NBCConnecticut.com By Jeff Saperstone They have the same name and apparently they have the same plans to head to the shoreline on Sunday. Irene Rios, a West Haven, Conn. woman who shares the same name as the hurricane barreling up the eastern seaboard, is supposed to get married to her fiancé on Sunday afternoon at Savin Rock, overlooking picturesque Long Island Sound. Hurricane Irene will alter their plans. “It looked like Hurricane Irene wanted to come to Irene’s wedding,” Irene's fiancé, David Knauf, said. The couple has been planning the outdoor shoreline wedding for more than a year now. “I’m very disappointed and it was really bothering me the past few days,” Rios said. “I’ve been watching the weather like crazy.” She even wrote an e-mail to NBC Connecticut Chief Meteorologist Brad Field, asking what they should do. “Brad was very kind, I so appreciate him reaching out to us,” Rios said. “He said that we would all be affected, but the severity is not known at this time.” The backup plan is to move the ceremony and all 120 guests indoors to the conference center. The couple is hopeful the storm doesn’t force evacuations, which could force them to further change their plans. “It’s sort of got us on the edge of our seats,” Knauf said. Guests are coming in from all over the country. They’re just crossing their fingers that one of them doesn’t show up. “An uninvited guest,” Rios said while smiling. “Irene is uninvited to Irene’s wedding.” What would you do if your wedding and a hurricane took place on the same day?

In order to give couples a very personalized ring shopping experience
oneline, Gottlieb & Sons has add interactive tools and new social
media functions to their website.

Using the innovative custom ring finder,
you will now be able to quickly and easily focus in on styles from the
broad Gottlieb & Sons collection that best matches your
personalities and tastes.

Utilizing a series of “faders” or slide tools, you are able to pan
from wedding-related preference variables such as Wedding Dress style,
Music tastes, Wedding location and Honeymoon destination, to help you
quickly identify ring styles that reflect your personality. As you
adjust the faders, ring suggestions become visible, corresponding to
the unique combination of variables selected by you.

The site also features recommendation software that will suggest
additional like styles you might consider once an initial selection has
been made.

Additional interactive elements of the site include:

The “Jewelry Box” where you can save favored ring styles selected
from the site. The “Jewelry Box” function will also allow you to
share your choices with others through a password protected section
and enable family and friends to post comments and feedback on their
favorites.

And the retailer locator function, which helps to identify jewelers in your area that carry your custom selection and store's locations via Google maps.

Most
wedding proposal stories begin and end the same. The anxious boy is
eagerly rehearsing the special words drawn up in his head, while the
unsuspecting girl sits ideally by until releasing a squeal of delight
and confirmation once the ring is placed on her finger.

While
that may be the case for some couples, at Gottlieb & Sons we
understand that not all couples are alike and some make a point to take
the extra step to ensure that their proposals are one of a kind.

Take a look at our favorite tech savvy wedding proposals that made it into our hall of fame.

Couples seem to be using all different kind of avenues to pop the question. Mashable posted one of the most unique proposals we've seen using Twitter and the Old Spice Guy. A fan named Johannes S. Beals tweeted,
“Can U Ask my girlfriend to marry me? Her name is Angela A.
Hutt-Chamberlin” to Old Spice. The following video popped up on YouTube
within an hour, and Old Spice tweeted it at Beals. The fan tweeted
within hours that she’d agreed to marry him.

Google
employee Michael Weiss-Malik wasn’t satisfied with his proposal 1.0
(“simple heart-felt words exchanged during a quiet night at home”), so
the 2.0 version took advantage of Google’s Street View pass near the
Google offices. Sadly, it has now been replaced with updated imagery,
but the memory lives on.

One lucky girl found the deal of a lifetime on Groupon,
the online shopping site. Dana, a Cincinnati Groupon fanatic, received a
special surprise when she logged to purse the daily shopping deals. The
deal of the day for her was a marriage proposal from the now fiancé
Greg, who contacted Groupon staff directly to make the proposal happen.

As
the royal engagement draws to a close this April, more couples are
adapting Will and Kate's approach to weddings. are beginning to realize
the benefits of a brief engagement period.

As Olivia Barker described in her recent USA Today article,
modern day couples are beginning to realized the benefits of a shorter
engagement and have begun to abandon drawn-out wedding planning.

"We
just really didn't see the point in waiting when we knew what we
wanted," says Sabartinelli, 26, a cultural arts coordinator for Grand
Junction.

She
is one of a bevy of brides bucking her generation's trend toward
engagements that can last as long as, well, many marriages. Consider the
most famous contemporary courtship of them all: Kate Middleton and Prince William, who will have been betrothed all of six months by the time they say "I do" on April 29.

With
these rapidly arranged nuptials, no shotgun is required. (Even though
friends and family often insist on probing: "You sure you're not
pregnant?") And couples aren't necessarily hastening their march to the
altar for old-fashioned military or religious reasons.

Instead,
these abbreviated engagements reflect modern mating trends: couples who
date, if not live together, for years and years, to the extent that a
protracted period between the proposal and the ceremony seems pointless
(it's not as if William and Kate need time to get to know each other).
Then there are older, sometimes second-time brides and grooms with the
wisdom of past relationships under their garter belts who are eager to
get other milestones, like baby-making, going.

And
then there are couples quietly rebelling against an industry that they
say pressures them to spend 14 to 16 months — the average engagement
length, according to a 2009 Conde Nast American wedding study — saving
up for their dream day. (Average cost: $28,082, according to the same
report.) Still other couples say it's not the day they're out to
emphasize, but the years that come after.

"We
put a lot of time and effort into thinking and talking about our
marriage as opposed to thinking and talking about our wedding," says
Brandy Egan, 37, a nurse from Drexel Hill, Pa., who married her husband,
Matt, last May after a five-month engagement.

Not
only are the newly engaged realizing the significance of taking the
focus off of the wedding ceremony and repositioning the importance on to
the marriage itself, but many also want their nuptials to reflect their
own generation and personality as a couple.

"For
most people, getting engaged is not a significant change in their
status in life," Roney says, vs. a generation or so ago, when it was the
time to make a commitment public and introduce future in-laws. Now, by
the time many grooms get on bended knee, "all that's already happened."
Heck, some couples have even bought a house together. Or had kids
together. After, say, six years, two dogs, one house and one child,
"it's hard for an engagement to mean anything special," Roney says. So
why not shrink it to its most basic components?

"At
the heart of every wedding is telling your own story," says Millie
Martini Bratten, editor in chief of Brides magazine. "Some people's
vision is very simple": a cozy City Hall ceremony plus restaurant party,
for example, or an intimate destination event in the Caribbean. Neither
scenario requires months of preparation. The goal in these cases is
"getting people together and having a lovely party," Bratten says, "but
not a big party with spectacular decor."

One
ideal element of a short sprint down the aisle can be the absence of
stress from the heightened expectations that can build during a lengthy
planning period.

"The
long engagement can glamorize what a wedding is," Sabartinelli says.
When it came to her 125-guest affair, "I was so tired. I didn't eat. I
met way too many people I didn't know. The whole night is just a blur
now. I keep thinking that if I had had a year-long engagement, I think I
would have felt pretty disappointed the next day, going, 'I did all
that work for this?' "

Britani
Hamill has sensed such misplaced priorities among her peers. "People
get so caught up in wedding planning. They're kind of putting on a show
for everyone else," says the 24-year-old dental assistant, whose July
wedding in Arlington, Texas, comes just shy of six months after her
fianc, Trent Blanchard, proposed. Friends and family are saying, " 'You
don't have to rush into this,' and I'm like, 'We haven't rushed into
anything!' " The pair have been dating for nine years. (Hamill is
thrilled that she shares a wedding timetable with William and Kate.
"Finally, someone in the public eye is getting this thing over with!")

Whether
it is a 2 years or 2 month engagement, the transparent message seems to
be that engaged couples are just excited to begin their lives together
as husband and wife.

How long of an engagement period would suit your relationship and personality style?